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Hallaton Treasure goes on tour
Posted on 21/07/2009
Community Services
One of Leicestershire’s greatest historical finds is to be shared with the rest of the nation.
In 2000 the Hallaton Fieldwork Group made a discovery Indiana Jones would have been proud of when they unearthed an Iron Age shrine.
It yielded hoards of silver and gold coins, mysterious silver artefacts, a Roman helmet and thousands of bones from great feasts which had been ritually buried.
On July 27 the Hallaton Treasure Travelling Exhibition will be launched to bring the story of the fascinating find to the rest of the country. The five-year project will begin by visiting areas of Leicestershire before going national.
The exhibition will offer people the chance to see, up-close-and-personal for the first time, some of the coins that were buried at the site nearly 2,000 years ago.
There will also be replicas of the silver finds, as well as an Iron Age tankard, as they would have looked like to the Ancient Britons who buried them.
Cabinet member for Better Places at Leicestershire County Council Ernie White said: "The discovery made by the Hallaton Fieldwork Group was absolutely incredible - which is why we want to share it with the rest of the country.
"The items that were found help us paint a picture of what life was like thousands of years ago. It just goes to show just how amazingly rich Leicestershire’s history is."
As well as the artefacts, the exhibition will tell the stories and thoughts of the amateur archaeologists who made the discovery at Hallaton, near Market Harborough, which has since been dubbed by experts as a "site of national importance".
The exhibition will be launched at County Hall at 10.30am on Monday, July 27 before moving to Leicester’s Jewry Wall on Saturday, August 1 as part of the Festival of Archaeology. It will then be housed in Ashby Museum from Monday, August 3 for three months.
Following that, there are plans to showcase it at towns and cities across the East Midlands, including Nottingham and Kettering, before it moves further afield across England and Wales.
The exhibition is part of a wider project which involves a special Hallaton Treasure Gallery to open at Harborough Museum (www.leics.gov.uk/HarboroughMuseum) on September 19.
The majority of the funding for this travelling exhibition comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
ENDS
For interviews with members of Leicestershire County Council’s Museums Service, or members of the Hallaton Fieldwork Group, call Kirsty Nicolson in the Press Office on 0116 3055712.
Notes:
The Southeast Leicestershire Project is supported by grants from The Heritage Lottery Fund of £650,600, £100,000 from The Art Fund, the UK’s leading independent art charity, £35,000 from the Museums and Art Galleries Improvements Fund, £35,000 from the MLA/V&A Purchase Fund Grant, The Headley Trust, Renaissance East Midlands and local contributions from the Friends of Leicester and Leicestershire Museums, the Leicestershire Museums Archaeological Fieldwork Group and the County Council, as well as private individuals.
A webcam is one of many ways the project will showcase the work which underpins the long term preservation and understanding of the finds. More details about the webcam will be issued in 2009.
Harborough Museum is operated in partnership by Leicestershire County Council, Harborough District Council and the Market Harborough Historical Society.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) enables communities to celebrate, look after and learn more about our diverse heritage. From our great museums and historic buildings to local parks and beauty spots or recording and celebrating traditions, customs and history, HLF grants open up our nation’s heritage for everyone to enjoy. Since its conception, HLF has supported 26,000 projects allocating over £4 billion across the UK.
The Art Fund is the UK’s leading independent art charity. It offers grants to help UK museums and galleries enrich their collections; campaigns on behalf of museums and their visitors; and promotes the enjoyment of art. It is entirely funded from public donations and has 80,000 members. Since 1903 the charity has helped museums and galleries all over the UK secure 860,000 works of art for their collections. Recent achievements include: helping secure Anthony d’Offay’s collection, ARTIST ROOMS, for Tate and National Galleries of Scotland in February 2008 with a grant of £1million; putting together a unique funding package to ensure Dumfries House in Ayrshire and its contents were secured intact for the nation in July 2007; and running the ‘Buy a Brushstroke’ public appeal which raised over £550,000 to keep Turner’s Blue Rigi watercolour in the UK. For more information contact the Press Office on 020 7225 4888 or visit www.artfund.org
The MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund is a government fund, established at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in 1881 as part of its nationwide work. The annual grants budget, currently £1,000,000, is provided by the Museums, Libraries, Archives Council (MLA). The Fund supports the acquisition of objects relating to the arts, literature, and history by regional museums, record offices and specialist libraries in England and Wales. Each year it considers some 300 applications and in 2006-7 awarded grants to 115 organisations, enabling acquisitions of over £4million to go ahead.
Visit the website at www.vam.ac.uk/purchasegrantfund
The DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund was set up in 2002 to improve the quality of displays, public spaces, environmental controls and access for disabled visitors in museums and galleries across England. The fund makes £4 million available in each year, with DCMS and the Wolfson Foundation each providing £2 million.
The Wolfson Foundation is a charitable foundation set up in 1955 with an annual income of some £39 million. Grants are generally given to act as a catalyst, to back excellence and talent and to provide for promising future projects which may currently be under-funded, particularly for renovation and equipment. There is a continued emphasis on science and technology, health, education and the arts. More information is available at www.wolfson.org.uk
The Headley Museums Archaeological Acquisition Fund has been established by the Headley Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. Its trustees realise the great difficulties many regional and local museums find in raising the money to buy archaeological artefacts. They are also aware of the proliferation of finds as a consequence of the success of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The Headley initiative is intended to help museums secure and display notable finds. The Headley Scheme runs alongside and in collaboration with the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund.